Canadian Group Psychotherapy Update

I am happy to report that we accomplished many of our goals that we set out in the last year, and we are looking forward to building on our accomplishments. I like to thank our board of directors and our committee members for all their hard work.

Our main aim continues to be building our membership services, and grow our membership. We hope you will be as committed as the Board and I are to establishing a sustainable association of group therapists in Canada.

We did not reach our membership goal of 150 by October 2016 but we slightly increased our membership over last year having around 115 members compared to 110 from the year before.

We need your continued help to grow our membership.

Invite a new member to CGPA. Please keep in mind for every new member that you invite you get a discount towards your next year’s membership fee.

We accomplished the following in the last year:

Our pilot mentor ship program was a success thanks to Dr. Samantha Surkis leadership. We are trying to make the association attractive for the students and therapists who are just starting out. We hope to attract more mentors and mentees to this initiative. Please consider being a mentor or suggest to someone you know to take advantage of being a mentee. This membership benefit in my opinion is priceless for both the mentor and the mentee.

Our Annual conference in Toronto on Oct 2016 was a success and we had an overwhelming positive response from most attendees. The three-day format worked well and we hope to repeat that in the coming years though we will stay flexible in the design of our annual meetings to adapt to the various locations and needs of the communities we hope to attract. The next Annual Meeting will be in Halifax in October of 2017 and in Winnipeg in October of 2018.

The Sunday night educational seminars continue to be popular. The teleconference is from 8-9 pm EST on the first Sunday of each month. It is offered free of charge to members and non-members. Please invite a colleague or a friend interested in group work to register and benefit from the experience and wisdom of senior group therapist from across Canada. This we hope will show case group therapy and introduce CGPA to the therapist communities across Canada.

Financially we will post a gain in 2016, that is mostly due to the generous contribution of our patron members and the success of Multicenter Experiential Groups in May of 2016. We will be repeating both those initiatives this year. Please consider being a patron member. Please consider getting involved in the 2017 May 13 ETG’s by either volunteering to run an experiential group or support hosting an ETG in your location, Spread the word in your communities about this event. We Hope to run groups in Toronto, Winnipeg, Halifax, Calgary and Vancouver. We are always open to have more sites around the country join in this one day ETG initiative.

Our Training committee under the leadership of Aida Cabecinha will continue to work on developing Web based Group Therapy Modules. That committee is also actively exploring the idea of developing a program for group therapy certification.

And finally, we hope to upgrade our website in the coming year. So, that it can be more accessible and efficient and useful for our members.

Please Give us feedback. Let us know how we can all support each other to have a more vital and fulfilling association. Consider getting involved by volunteering to join our committees or the Board of Directors.

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About the Society

The Society of Group Psychology and Group Psychotherapy is Division 49 of the American Psychological Association and provides a forum for psychologists interested in research, teaching, and practice in group psychology and group psychotherapy.